Summertime and the Living is Easy…or maybe not! Coping With Seasonality


It’s been a glorious summer, sunshine all the way. But for some practitioners, any summer, and a fine one in jugaad1particular, is not the good news it might be.

For many reasons, the holiday season can result in a fall off of work for counsellors and therapists. Clients feel better, they go on holidays, or they decide they’d rather spend the money on tennis lessons. Of course, it’s nice for us to have a break too. Unless of course, you haven’t planned for the drop in your income.

How do you cope with the seasonality of this business? Are you a “seat of your pants” person, crossing your fingers and trusting that there’ll be enough in the bank to see you through the lean times, or do you take a more structured approach? It’s probably too late for this year, but when you’re looking at next year (You do plan, right? Okay, maybe a post for another day!) consider building in a reserve to cover the times when work is not as plentiful.

For example:

Joe Therapist knows that he will have full (or almost full) capacity for about 40 weeks of the year, half capacity for another 4 weeks and will earn nothing in the remaining 8 weeks of the year. He needs income for all 52 weeks, so how does he do it?

  1. He can pretend it’s not a problem, and eat little or nothing when his clients are on holidays.
  2. He can put a little aside in each of the weeks when he has full income to help him over the weeks when he has less or he has none.
  3. He can arrange his expenses so that they largely fall when he has full income.
  4. He can borrow to cover the holiday period, and pay it back when he has income.
  5. He can arrange his affairs with clients so that his income is more constant (for example, by contracting with a client that a limited number of holiday weeks can be taken)

With a little bit of forethought, the holiday season can be as comfortable as the rest of the year, and when it’s a fine one, you can sit back and enjoy the unexpected bonus, knowing that your bills are covered.

How do you manage the seasonality of your work? Share your experiences with us below.

Jude Fay MIAHIP, MIACP, FCA is a practising psychotherapist and counsellor in Naas and Celbridge Co Kildare. Her interest in the business side of running a psychotherapy practice reflects her earlier career as a Chartered Accountant.

If you would like to speak to Jude about any aspect of starting or running a therapy or counselling practice please click here: Contact Us